Review queue/FESCo after the merge (was: Re: qct review request, no response?)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

CCing fedora-advisory-board

On 14.11.2007 13:36, Mamoru Tasaka wrote:
> Neal Becker wrote, at 11/14/2007 09:01 PM +9:00:
>> I've seen no response to:
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=373621
>> Did I do something wrong, or is everyone busy?
> Please be patient. Currently there are about 270 review requests
> which are not assigned to anybody.

And 1108 open reviews in total (including lots of merge reviews (¹))
according to
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/InProgressReviewRequests

which redirects to
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Fedora&component=Package+Review&query_format=advanced&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=FAILS_QA&bug_status=MODIFIED&bug_status=NEEDINFO&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ON_DEV&bug_status=ON_QA&bug_status=PASSES_QA&bug_status=POST&bug_status=RELEASE_PENDING&bug_status=VERIFIED&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&fixed_in_type=allwordssubstr&fixed_in=&qa_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&qa_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=flagtypes.name&type0-0-0=notsubstring&value0-0-0=fedora-review%2B&f
ield0-1-0=bug_id&type0-1-0=notregexp&value0-1-0=%5E163776%24&field0-2-0=bug_id&type0-2-0=notregexp&value0-2-0=%5E163778%24&field0-3-0=bug_id&type0-3-0=notregexp&value0-3-0=%5E163779%24&field0-4-0=bug_id&type0-4-0=notregexp&value0-4-0=%5E177841%24

Some of them are quite old. And the list of course doesn't include those
bugs that got closed as the packager lost interest over time.


I think we have a problem here. I'm actually wondering what FESCo (and
the Board) thinks about that.


Or, to look at the big picture: During the Extras days FESCo would have
taken care of something like that months ago. IIRC FESCo constantly
tried to improve the workflow for reviewers and packagers to make their
life easier, Extras better and everyone happy. And there were new
sponsors nominated and accepted every few weeks to make sure the number
of sponsors grows in parallel with the number of packagers/packages..

Both things seem to get lost during the merge(²). FESCo got lots of new
things to take care of. It seems to me most of the things it took care
of in the past fell of the table and nobody really takes care of them
anymore these days.


Or, let's say it different way: In the Extras-days FESCo made sure
contributers stayed happy while we grew. These days FESCo mainly makes
sure we get a distribution out every 6 months.

Is this what we wanted when we designed the current governing model? I
don't think so.

Is it bad? Yes, I think it is, that's why I wrote this mail.

Why do you think it's bad? Because I more and more often hear in private
that contributers are unhappy. I also got the impression that people are
more and more unwilling to participate in discussions and on lists. And
there are no new leaders emerging in FESCo/packaging-land (the low
number of people that volunteered during the FESCo election is one
reasons for this opinion; or look at FPC -- according to the wiki the
same people since one year; there is also next-to no interest by
non-committee-members in participating in the meetings).

What do you suggest? I'm not sure; some random ideas: Get barriers out
of the way. Maybe redefine the governing model again and merge FESCo and
the Board. Lower the importances of the committees -- make them
coordinate and not dominate. Make reviewing easier and help people with
exchanging reviews while making sure we get new sponsors. Move over to a
slightly more wiki-style approach for the packages and make sure
contributers are happy.

Cu
knurd

(¹) -- can't remember, but wasn't it a unwritten (or even written?) goal
to get all Core packages reviewed by F8?

(²) -- does anybody know how many new sponsors we got since F7?